Google’s appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court is denied

After Google appealed a lower court’s ruling that narrowed the scope of patents that can be challenged before a federal tribunal, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal and stood by the 2016 federal court decision.

The case stems from a lawsuit with patent licensing firm Unwired Planet LLC. They sued Google in Nevada federal court in 2012 claiming infringement of a patent for restricting access to a cellphone’s location data, Google challenged the patent’s validity in a covered business method (CBM) review, a proceeding uniquely meant for checking the validity of business and finance-related patents. The patent office reviews, conducted by its in-house Patent Trial and Appeal Board, have become a quick and cheap way for companies that are prime targets for infringement suits, such as such as Google and Apple Inc, to try to invalidate patents.

Also on Monday, the Supreme Court denied a number of other appeals that had also challenged the constitutionality of the patent review process.

The Supreme Court on Monday took up another case involving Google, an internet privacy dispute concerning an increasingly common form of settlement in class action suits that funnels money to unrelated third parties and charities instead of to people affected by the alleged wrongdoing.